James Gurney

This daily weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.

CG Art

Contact

or by email:gurneyjourney (at) gmail.comSorry, I can't give personal art advice or portfolio reviews. If you can, it's best to ask art questions in the blog comments.

Permissions

All images and text are copyright 2015 James Gurney and/or their respective owners. Dinotopia is a registered trademark of James Gurney. For use of text or images in traditional print media or for any commercial licensing rights, please email me for permission.

However, you can quote images or text without asking permission on your educational or non-commercial blog, website, or Facebook page as long as you give me credit and provide a link back. Students and teachers can also quote images or text for their non-commercial school activity. It's also OK to do an artistic copy of my paintings as a study exercise without asking permission.

Ultramarine was the runaway favorite, not counting white, which would have scored 245 if you counted flake and zinc. No greens made the top ten, though I think permanent green would have scored fairly high; I just forgot to include it.

The results are quite different from the results in Jason Peck’s original poll (link), which scored highest with white, black, burnt sienna, and vermilion. As a couple of you observed in the comments, you could paint almost anything with the top four colors in the survey of blog readers.

This week we’re polling your favorite paint brands. If you use a variety of manufacturers, you can vote for more than one. Thanks, Jason, and thanks to everyone for participating.

6 comments:

I have a question of a technical nature rather than art related that I hope you can help me understand. There are some sites that I dont like to browse because I cannot back out of the site. Up until a few days ago, I could always back out of your site but now I no longer can. It is a little aggrevating feeling like a captive on these particular type sites.

Hey James, I just put my vote in on brands. I just read the list of colors that poled the highest. Im happy to see that I can pick my palette out of this selection of colors. My Palette of 13 colors from the highest poled is as follows:

William, I'm no expert on the tech side--maybe someone else can comment--but if you mean the back arrow on the top bar, I wonder if there's something wrong with your browser. But if there's really something wrong with the blog site or dinotopia.com, please let me know how to fix it.

Jason: good palette, and I also like working with blue and burnt sienna, or ultra and raw sienna in watercolor. By the way, my apologies to watercolorists, because I left off Payne's grey, Hooker's green, and all the standards.

I noticed the omission of permanent green. I use a lot of it. especially in spring time in California. All the grass is already turning yellow though so I won't be using quite as much for the next eight months although it does make a really nice dark neutral tone when mixed with alizarin crimson.I didn't see Daniel Smith on your list of manufacturers. I use a bunch of it. I order from them for my classroom and I really like the stuff. It fits my high school teacher's budget and seems to have a pretty high pigment content.